Daily Thoughts: Boredom, MOP, T.E.R.A., and Elder Scrolls Online

Anyone who follows, or more appropriately stated – used to follow, this blog would most certainly have noticed that it’s been sometime since I last posted. I don’t even know when (though I could easily check).  Yes, I’m alive and yes, I’m still playing. But, I’ve found my interest waning over the last several months. I know there are a couple of factors in this. First, I’m 3 levels away from having one toon of every class – admittedly it’s taken 3 months to go from 80-82 on my Warlock. Second, my guild is doing much better at raiding in the last two tiers than we have in quite sometime. How is doing better a problem? Between Firelands and Dragon Soul we’ve managed to increase our realm progression rank by 15-20 spots. We’re deep into Dragon Soul heroic boss attempts. This also means that we’ve killed all of the bosses a ton of times. Over and over. Frankly, I’m moderately tired of the concept of killing the same enemy repeatedly only to discover him alive and well a week later. Even worse, Mist of Pandaria doesn’t have me excited – at all.

Mists of Pandaria

Don’t get me wrong, the new expansion looks gorgeous, the monk is pretty fun to play so far, and I’m even not opposed to the concept of Pandas as a race. Overall though, it’s really just more of the same. I’ve played a few hours on the beta between a new Panda toon and a premade 85 monk. A couple of hours of questing on each, beta bugs aside, yields quite a few kill Y, collect X. If Blizzard re-textured the area with ice and the monkeys into skeletons then it would pretty much be WotLK; make the landscape burnt and the monkeys elementals instead and it would be Cataclysm. I know, to some degree this is the formula of the MMORPG. Maybe I’m just tired of the formula and need a break from the genre entirely, but maybe not.

T.E.R.A. & Elder Scrolls Online

I managed to discover the TERA beta in time to get a couple of hours of play in over a couple of days. I played 3 or 4 classes up to level 7-8. Unsurprisingly, I discovered there was a healthy assortment of kill Y, collect X quests mixed in with talk to N and go to Z. It felt, somehow, a little fresher. The combat is closer to that of an adventure game than a RPG. There is need and benefit to dodging attacks outside of just voidzones and scripted moves. It also seems like every character might be able to have all professions. Gathering felt, for a moment, like Skyrim (which I greatly enjoyed), until I tried to gather something that was too high for my skill and WoW rushed back to me. It didn’t function quite differently enough for me to buy it, but has stuck in my head and gives me the impression that a future MMO may come out that is inventive enough to actually best WoW (in my individual opinion). This of course is where I must give a shout-out to the recently announced Elder Scrolls Online. We won’t really know anything about the game for sometime and the release date is tentatively 2013, but I’m already a little excited for the potential.

The Last Word

Overall, I don’t really expect to quit WoW anytime soon. I still enjoy raiding with my guild (mostly because of the guild, less so the raiding, currently) and don’t want to leave them without their main tank and one of their most consistent raiders. But I can see a fast approaching horizon where I might find myself taking an extended break or even jumping ship to another game (See: Elder Scrolls Online). I’ll give MOP a chance and see if Blizzard has done anything really game changing or just gave us more of the same with Pandas and a bunch of monkeys.